Housing Benefit under occupancy Help

barnaby-bear

mazza111 wrote: »

Does make me wonder about how quick the council would step in if/when things went wrong though. They weren't very forthcoming in sorting things out when a friend of a friend found herself in the shared homeless flat. No where safe to store her property securely. Laptop went missing, which was about the only thing worth anything that she left her marriage with. How would the house insurance work?

Lots of insurers cover shared houses. e.g. Endsleigh

"how quick the council would step" - the majority of young working people in this country have to live in shared houses and miraculously survive without having to run to the council. If all these people with two beds are upstanding enough to need their rent subsidised - how come they'd turn into theiving scum if they took in a lodger ???

I can see an argument for self-contained units for families, but a house shared is fine for singles/couples of any age and what's the norm for high earning professionals in London.

I just don't recognise a widespread lack of demand for social housing such as you describe. And if there is such a 1-bed shortage getting some lodgers into the spare rooms seems a good idea.

princessdon

barnaby-bear wrote: »

Lots of insurers cover shared houses. e.g. Endsleigh

"how quick the council would step" - the majority of young working people in this country have to live in shared houses and miraculously survive without having to run to the council. If all these people with two beds are upstanding enough to need their rent subsidised - how come they'd turn into theiving scum if they took in a lodger ???

I can see an argument for self-contained units for families, but a house shared is fine for singles/couples of any age and what's the norm for high earning professionals in London.

I just don't recognise a widespread lack of demand for social housing such as you describe. And if there is such a 1-bed shortage getting some lodgers into the spare rooms seems a good idea.

There is a demand based on want. There is very few on this earth who doesn't WANT SH, it's security and it's benefits.

Morlock

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

It's not always that simple. ...flats tend to be classed as "Non-family type accommodation"...

This is the problem for a lot of tenants who are now deemed to be under-occupying, and the reason why they were offered the tenancy. The properties are unsuitable for families, often in blocks of flats and high rises where suitable tenants were not on the waiting list, and in a lot of areas, often still aren't.

The demographic for two-bedroom flats is very restricted in order not to under-occupy; two independent adults, two couples, or a couple and another adult. Singles are offered to sign tenancies for two-bedroom flats because the demographic to fully-occupy is not in need of that type social housing.

Resulting in 81% of those affected under-occupying by one room, the majority being two-bedroom properties occupied by single people, and not suitable family accommodation. They are now at risk of losing their homes, and those homes being occupied by..who?... a demographic that does not exist on the current waiting lists.

lighting_up_the_chalice

Morlock wrote: »

This is the problem for a lot of tenants who are now deemed to be under-occupying, and the reason why they were offered the tenancy. The properties are unsuitable for families, often in blocks of flats and high rises where suitable tenants were not on the waiting list, and in a lot of areas, often still aren't.

The demographic for two-bedroom flats is very restricted in order not to under-occupy; two independent adults, two couples, or a couple and another adult. Singles are offered to sign tenancies for two-bedroom flats because the demographic to fully-occupy is not in need of that type social housing.

Resulting in 81% of those affected under-occupying by one room, the majority being two-bedroom properties occupied by single people, and not suitable family accommodation. They are now at risk of losing their homes, and those homes being occupied by..who?... a demographic that does not exist on the current waiting lists.

Plenty of fathers who want that second bedroom for the odd overnight stay by their children. I'm sure that's worth a few quid a week for a responsible parent. Of course, if they are working (and why shouldn't they be) it makes no difference. It just puts their non working friends on an equal footing!

Morlock

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

Plenty of fathers who want that second bedroom for the odd overnight stay by their children. I'm sure that's worth a few quid a week for a responsible parent.

£71 - £14 = £57 per week for a shared-care parent to provide for their children, that's fine as long as they are 'responsible'.

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

Of course, if they are working (and why shouldn't they be)...

I am sure that most shared-care parents would rather give up their home that has a room for their kids than get a job, right? As obviously those who aren't employed don't try hard enough to get a job [sigh].

mazza111

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

Perhaps she would have been better off in the private sector?

With what? She left an abusive marriage with a bag of clothes and her laptop? Went directly to woman's aid.... Who placed her in one of the council's shared flats.

PD I realise that not everywhere in the country is as fortunate as housing as we are up here. I've seen the other side of it too, living in Brighton for 15 years Places like this where there is a severe housing shortage, definitely put this in place. 100% agree with that. But here.. It wouldn't imo, change anything.


If the council are the ones who arranging flat shares as opposed to the tenants finding someone to share for themselves, then surely they would have a responsibility if it all went wrong. They do atm in these shared flats.


Barnaby - I had no idea about the insurance. I've never been in the position of sharing. I have never said anyone turns into thieving scum, but... well I've seen it happen in the homeless units around here. Again I think a flat share is a great idea if it's something you've arranged yourself rather than LA saying here's a flat, share it with this other eejit.

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

Maybe, just maybe, if these rules were in place then, your friend may have been able to access Social Housing?

She did after she had done her time with her little ones in a shared house.

Morlock

Some interesting points are raised here, most of which have been highlighted in this thread:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120919132719/www.communities.gov.uk/documents/housing/pdf/138895.pdf

"It may be preferable in some areas to underlet some properties in order to reduce child densities, retain a mix of household types or simply to encourage people to live on unpopular estates. A policy to reduce under-occupation in an area of low demand could be counter-productive, releasing voids that are difficult to let and depriving a community of long-standing members."

"If the [property] that is to be released is not going to be easy to let, then it adds to the costs rather than to the benefits. significant numbers of such properties would be a problem."

Significant numbers of properties affected by the bedroom tax are properties considered difficult to let as fully-occupied, and therefore the properties are let to single people.

"If a compensation scheme only considers the amount of space given up by tenants, it may generate a high proportion of moves that are not especially useful from the landlord’s point of view."

"The need to avoid paying to release properties for which there is little or no demand is a real consideration, and it may seem a poor use of scarce resources to pay for moves that would have happened anyway."

The majority of tenants who accept incentives to downsize, are those tenants who would have more than likely moved regardless.

"It is important that local authorities analyse supply and demand separately for each size of dwelling. Such an analysis would provide a much firmer basis for policy decisions on either promoting underoccupier moves or underletting some properties."

A great idea which might actually solve more problems than it creates, unlike the bedroom tax, which uses under-occupancy as an excuse for blanket benefit cuts, and bears almost no relation to solving any under-occupancy problems in social housing.

mazza111

Interesting reading in that Morlock. And I think it says a lot of what I've been trying to say. But they've done it so much better

Although I think in part it they were talking about the incentives to tenants who have larger houses. Don't know if they still do that here or not, they used to. But it works in the same way as I believe the new charges should here.

lighting_up_the_chalice

Morlock wrote: »

£71 - £14 = £57 per week for a shared-care parent to provide for their children, that's fine as long as they are 'responsible'.

Perhaps you could explain what these numbers, seemingly plucked out of thin air, mean?

Morlock wrote: »

I am sure that most shared-care parents would rather give up their home that has a room for their kids than get a job, right? As obviously those who aren't employed don't try hard enough to get a job [sigh].

You misunderstand. I was challenging the assertion that social housing tenants who are under-occupying must be claiming HB, when many aren't and will be unaffected by this change.

ijwia

its just a big game of musical chairs with flats

there will be very little acomplished from a great deal of hardship

how any reasonable person can think this is a logical and sensible approach to make MAKE people move from their secure tennancy into a private 1 bedroom flat that is probably miles away from family

for the saving of what exactly is there any figures ?

just a swift kick in the balls for social housing tennants

who would have thought it coming from the tories ..... duh

build flipping social low cost houses and flats!!! why don't you ?

"oh no prime minister we cant do that it will cause a house price crash"

people that vote will never vote for us again because of the crash in their house valuation and negative equity

let's just punish the poor and incapable that's always a good policy, they never vote for us anyway

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